Rupert
Murdoch's British tabloid paper, the Sun, has apologized to a
politician for accessing information on a mobile phone that had
been stolen from her, the BBC reports.

Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh's phone was stolen from her car in
October 2010. British police later told her that the Sun had been
accessing her text messages from around this date.

In London's High Court today, the Sun, part of Murdoch's News
International group of newspapers, apologized for accessing the
private information, and agreed to pay McDonagh "very substantial
damages".

Exactly who stole the phone has not been revealed, though the Sun
has not accepted any responsibility for that crime. There had
been earlier reports that the phone was handed in to the paper by
"a member of the public."

McDonagh,
speaking after the hearing, said, “I'm in public life and I
don't have a hang-up about my own privacy, but my family and
constituents who had contacted me and given personal views were
subjected to people seeing it. That made me feel very uneasy."

While the Sun was largely able to escape accusations about phone
hacking, these new allegations could prove difficult for
Murdoch's British newspapers to shake. Today a lawyer for phone
hacking victims told the High Court
that there were potentially "hundreds" of new victims.